


Advice

by RageHappyThunder



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-08
Updated: 2013-11-08
Packaged: 2017-12-31 21:38:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1036665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RageHappyThunder/pseuds/RageHappyThunder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ray starts working at RT and develops a crush on Joel but is insecure about the whole ‘age gap’ thing. Maybe one day when Ray seems upset Joel asks him if he’s okay and offers advice and the feelings happen?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Advice

“Hi I’m-”  
“Joel.” Ray breathed out with a smile on his face as he shook the older man’s hand, Joel returned the smile, gave a polite ‘nice to meet you Ray’ before shuffling back into his office. Ray followed Geoff around, only half-listening to what the older man was saying, because Ray was awe-struck; just met donut.

Or was is caboose.

Aw fuck it.

The first couple of weeks was basically Ray adjusting to the office, getting the hang of the editing system they used, testing the waters with different jokes, making sure he doesn’t suck. Talking with everyone to break the ice, chatting Joel up while he got his coffee, playing video games, laughing at Joel’s jokes, editing his audio, wondering what Joel did that made him so damn busy, re-recording something because he was so out of it that he forgot to press ‘record,’ accidently falling for one of his co-workers. You know the usual stuff.

Nope, nope I don’t like Joel like that.

So Ray talked less with Joel, and being the quick-witted observational person he is, Joel had no idea of this, not because he didn’t feel Ray’s absence in his life, no, never because of that, but because he was always so god damned busy.

Months passed, and, determined to talk more with Ray, Joel setup that they do a video together, and then another one.

Look, Ray tried so fucking hard to not laugh at every joke Joel threw out there butugh, like a lovesick teenager who didn’t know what to do, he just laughed, trying hard not to look at Joel when he did, because every time Joel managed to make Ray laugh, he would toss him a smile and give him a look, his brown eyes glistening. Joel managed to smile with his eyes just as much as his mouth and Ray hated the way it made his stomach do flips.

Because face it, Ray was 18 years younger than Joel, and there is no way he’dever go for him. Right?

Right.

Ray was still upbeat during let’s plays, he was always upbeat, happy-go-lucky, nothing ever brought him down.

Except Joel’s god-forsaken smile, everytime Ray caught a glimpse of that, his stomach would drop because, as crappy and cheesy as this sounds, Joel wasn’t smiling for him.

One day, during lunch, Ray wasn’t particularly hungry so he just sat down on the sidewalk, knees close to his chest and his face buried, he just sat down and thought, about work, about games, and not about Joel. No sirree. He did not think about how soft Joel’s lips looked, or how cute he was when he laughed, or how much his smug grin turned him on. No sirree. He did not think about that. Not at all.

“Ray?” Shit, shit, he knew that voice.

“Hey Joel,” Ray said, his voice seemed small and he just wanted to disappear, he stretched his legs in front of him. Even though it was lunch, and he was in the most secluded part of the parking lot, somehow, Joel managed to find him. “What are you doing here?”

“ ‘S my car.” Joel pointed to the vehicle in front of him, oh god Ray felt stupid. Joel took a sip of his coke and sat down next to Ray.  
“What’s the matter?” Joel asked and Ray looked away from him.

“Nothing, just looking at the outside.”

“Ah.” Joel took a sip of his drink and Ray took a peek at him. Joel was looking, or trying to look, at Ray’s face, his eyes were soft and caring, his lips looked like they wanted to call bullshit on what Ray just told him, but instead he passed his tongue over his lips to clean them from the sip of the drink he just took, taking a moment to bite the lower one-

Why did Ray look? The younger sighed and looked at Joel.

“It’s just stupid problems I’m blowing out of proportion.” Joel bobbed his head and made an ‘ah’ sound like he knew what Ray was going through. “You probably don’t want to listen to it, it’s just stupid.” Oh god, I’m so fucking young and we probably don’t have anything to talk about but I really don’t want him to leave, oh god he’s smiling at me I fucking wish I was older or he was younger and just-

“It’s probably not stupid if it’s upsetting you.”

“Naw it really is. Trust me.” Oh my god I can’t just tell him hey I’m crushing for him and that’s what’s been bugging me god damn it.

“Let’s get a pizza or something, and I can offer you some of my legendary advice kid,” Joel got up and reached down for Ray’s hand.

Don’t take his hand and say no.

“Yeah sure,” Ray grabbed Joel’s hand and hoisted himself up, his hands weren’t soft, they were rugged and strong.

God damn it Ray you had one job.

The car ride wasn’t tense, Ray was nervous and intertwined his fingers together, Joel asked him things and they had a back and forth going on, during lunch when they sat down and ate it seemed like they didn’t just break the ice, the ice melted and it was already summer, they poked fun at each other and Ray felt less nervous. Ray walked back to Joel’s car after they both paid for their own meals.

“So what was bugging you?” Ugh no don’t bring that up Joel. The RT office was just within sight, Ray could probably open the car door, roll out and just walk.

“Umm, yeah, well you know,”   
“It’s okay, you don’t need to tell me, but just for the record,” Joel tired to park his car, “Just for the-” He almost hit the tree, “I just want to-”  
“Just focus on parking Joel.” Joel did, and he felt the car lurch as if he just hit something, Joel took off his seatbelt and leaned back in his chair.

“I’m not even drunk.” He said matter of factly and Ray couldn’t help but laugh, and Joel smiled.

“You wanted to…?”  
“I wanted to what?”  
“I don’t know you started to say something but then you had to stop and park because you cannot multitask.”  Joel narrowed his eyes and thought hard for a moment.

“Oh, right.” He tore a piece of magazine paper and jotted his number down, “In case you want to tell me what’s wrong so I can give you some grade A advice.” He handed the piece of paper to Ray, “And I want you to know that you’re an amazing kid, and that whatever’s got you down’s gonna pass, but you have a right to be sad and shit but come tomorrow you need to fucking, not waste your time on this. Alright? You have wonderful friends and the fans love you and I want you to know that if you need anything that I’m here to talk to you, okay?”  
Ray grabbed the number in his hand tighter.

“Okay.” Ray reached over the and hugged Joel, who hugged him back, “Thanks Joel.” They stayed like that for a moment and Ray got nervous, very nervous. So he gave Joel a swift, peck on the cheek. Swift as in his lips barely made contact with skin and lasted about .00000000001 seconds. Ray bolted out of the car, waving back at Joel with his hand that carried the number and walked inside.

Joel lifted up his hand to touch the place Ray kissed, and smiled to himself.

  
(I cannot say for sure, but let me tell you, their first official date did not go as well as their first unofficial one.)


End file.
